DALLAS: from “who shot JR?” to “methane hydrates will destroy the planet”

Ugh. Sigh, they can’t even just fight over Texas oil, cattle, and greed anymore, now they fight over “alternate energy”.

I just caught a few minutes of the Turner Network Television (TNT) reboot of the 70’s TV primetime drama “DALLAS”, and the Ewings aren’t fighting over oil, no they are fighting because Bobby wants to sell Southfork Ranch to the TV equivalent of The Nature Conservancy to keep oil drilling from happening on it and the Ewing kids are fighting over alternative energy schemes in the form of methane hydrates off the coast of Japan.

The plot is pretty lame. Even lamer are the mentions of the “greenhouse gas potency of methane being hundreds of times that of carbon” (I’m paraphrasing what I saw on closed captioning) but I’m sure there was no mention of carbon dioxide, just carbon. Another line is “yes, methane is dangerous”.

That, and mining methane hydrates from the ocean floor off the coast of japan is causing earthquakes.

Any minute now I expect fracking to be mentioned and maybe they’ll bring in Al Gore for some carbon credit advice from Goldman Sachs to help offset the methane in Japan. I expect JR will try to corner both the methane hydrates AND the carbon credit markets. It sure seems headed that way.

Well we have only one possible instance of this ever occuring in paleo-history – the PETM possibly (probably caused by volcanoes in the newly opening north atlantic but it could have been hydrates.) Otherwise, there is no evidence of it ever happening ever.

And we can compare the last interglacial when it was +4.5C warmer in the Arctic. Nope didn’t happen. What about the interglacial 400,000 years ago which was a relatively long one, long enough to melt out the glaciers on the southern third of Greenland. Nope again.

John Ross, JR’s son, had been wildcatting on the South Fork Ranch, unknown to Bobby Ewing, the guy who now owns the ranch. John Ross discovered reserves of a billion barrels of oil, and Chris exclaimed that it could only be recovered by fracking. I forget the exact words, but fracking was considered to be destructive of something.

Bobby has stomach cancer, and wants to sell South Fork. Nobody knows he has cancer. He backs his wimpy son’s plans to mine the methane from the sea floor.

My wife and I counted about eight story-ines, or plots among among different combinations of cousins, in-laws, parents, family lawyers, and friends. It is a king sized mess, and features bad science.

JR is still the meanest, most disgusting character ever invented. Larry Hagman is the best actor in the series.

Eco nuttiness is all over hollywood. I rarely see a movie (or show) that does not show “wind as clean” and “coal is dirty” without talking about the bad parts of wind power namely the cost and how no one can use them. And these things are mixed in all the time into popular shows. I was watching cartoons with my nephew and I couldn’t stand the nonsense they peddle on some of those shows. Wind power is always good for instance to go along with this theme…

But in any regard: Case in point, the movie Priest where the opening scenes are on a small farm powered by that nonsense and the big bad city never sees the sun due to pollution. And supposedly they had “power all the time” due to the turbines. Nonsense. Or AMC’s walking dead….I did like that show until I watched the sixth episode and the cursory “why did we use fossil fuels” line had to be added. More like, why didn’t they store 20 years worth of fuel or something like that.

But heck nowadays you can pick just about any movie or show and see some reference to how “green is holy” and “anything else is evil.” Its almost sad to watch Hollywood turn into a religious pamphlet based on shallow beliefs and on such shallow thoughts. But they get it in the end when the shows get cancelled to some extent.

In any regard, I expect this nonsense to continue for quite awhile as the people in Hollywood and elsewhere involved in making said shows are so shallow and so narcissitic that they would never believe that “they could be the reason” that the show gets bad ratings. And I wonder why everytime I think of Hollywood in general I always picture Dr. Mann? Hint: probably has something to do with the shallow thought processes and narcissism involved there.

A sad joke, yes, but it highlights the real problem. its not the science, thats clear, man made globull warming is a total crock. No the real problem is the story above, its pervasive, its everywhere and its evil.

The Greens will complain that advocating the burning of any “stored carbon” is bad and demand cancellation, Climategate 3.0: Full Frontal Assault on Freedom will be released, then JR will wake up from his dream, finding out he was in a coma after the small plane he was in crashed after getting clipped by a wind turbine blade at night.

JR will “get his revenge” by buying up the wind farm, drilling for oil and gas between the turbines, starting fracking. Then when the anti-drill anti-frack intimidation squads show up, he’ll take carefully-framed photos for anonymous circulation showing “Environmentalists Protesting Wind Farm”.

Well maybe those methane hydrates willput in an appearance, just as we need another option to natural gas as an alternative energy supply; can’t wait to see that.
My local sanfran PBS t&v station just broadcast a big long GWBS propaganda show disguised as a news broadcast, all about oceans rising meters in the next few years, and swamping sf, and not to mention that all the plants and animals are moving from Baja ca to the north pole to escape the punishing heat. The poor redwood trees can’t move that fast so perhaps we will have to make do with all those Aussie gum trees instead.

They traipsed out every grant begging, otherwise unemployable scientist, to cadge for funds to study their latest link in the GW mania. W ith a typical northern summer daily Temperature range on earth of well over 100 deg C from coldest to hottest and sometimes as much as 150 deg C; and remember that life can be found almost anywhere on earth, living over that temperature range and more; they are concerned that a Baja sea anenome (that’s what the “scientist” called it) can still survive off sf Bay tide pools even though it is much colder than Baja. Seems like that anenome is smarter than the scientist, preferring it cooler than the Baja heat.

I finally had to turn off the t&v, as they have been running every sob story group celebration BS garbage continuously all evening. Thank Mother Gaia, I can get the Communist Red Chinese English language propaganda channel on my freebie rabbit ears. Makes me sick, just being within driving range of sf.

Somewhat OT, but on yesterday’s Perth news, there was a piece about someone’s roof had blown off in a storm and they had just installed solar panels. It occured to me that rather than being a coincidence, it was cause and effect.

I know my own solar panels are installed with a gap between the panels and the roof. Ideal for a strong wind to get enough force under the panels to lift the roof off.

The pundits are “wondering why it was remade”? Hmm, let’s see. One old TV show that was very very popular, one propaganda line that just isn’t sticking (except in the craw of a scientifically literate observer), and many millions to spend on louder propaganda …

Even lamer are the mentions of the “greenhouse gas potency of methane being hundreds of times that of carbon”

Shows the script writers are TV educated. Not surprising I suppose.

However, they may not be too far from the mark assuming they meant to refer to carbon dioxide.
The IPCC AR4 gives methane weighting of 22 IIRC. But this is based on the erroneous idea that CO2 emmissions will stay in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years.

There is some very dubious science on this . Post bomb testing C14 data suggests radioactive CO2 had an e-folding life time of around 5 years in the atmosphere.

The idea that CO2 will stay in the atmosphere for several hundred years is one of the pillars of thermagedon.

A global warming potential for CH4 nearer to 100 may be more realistic than the IPCC’s 22.

Ted is evidently going full court press with his anti frakking nonsense. “Rizzoli and isles” also on TNT had an episode this week that featured a murderous villain involved in a plot to “secretly” sink frakking wells on a nature reserve. The discussion of frakking presented was laughably ignorant.

If you have someone in your acquaintance who is buying into this manure you might refer them to this

It’s a video made in response to “Gasland” the “documentary” film famous for its depiction of exploding tapwater supposedly resulting from frakking wells, although the phenomenon has been around for years before frakking even existed. It’s a bit corny, but it does cover the bases pretty well.

Bill Illis’ claim that methane hydrate outgassing has never happened is not quite right. There have been the odd major extinction that has been put down to a major anoxic event caused by methane oxidizing to CO2 and H2O but there is no firm evidence that the anoxic event was methane caused only that it was likely to be methane caused.

I loved the way they went from a single well blowing out oil (BOP anyone?) to a billion barrel reservoir of light sweet crude (in about two minutes). And then that they said the field would have to be fracked, thus destroying SouthFork…. Great drama – no science.

The problem is that people will believe this crap – the same way that they believe you can get DNA fingerprint ID in 20 minutes of a CSI episode.

It seems to me that many here are asking too much of the writers of this rehashed evening soap opera because the factual presentation of the science does not make for a very interesting plot. Take for example two fairly popular movies, “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012” these two movies would have never even been produced if any real science had been consulted in the process of writing the scripts. I personally have no problem with how the writers go about their job because I don’t go watch a Drama series to get factual information on anything. I somehow know that the presentations are a work of fiction and in most cases don’t even attempt to present anything even close to a real life scenario.

Gee . . . and all this time I thought that the danger of methane is why we found a use for it as energy . . . can’t have that stuff floating around in the air gassing all life . . . . . . I think I am as confused as “TNT” . . . because last time I checked was very useful for “constructive demolitions” . . . .

Dave Wendt said at 2:04 am“Rizzoli and isles” also on TNT had an episode this week that featured … frakking wells on a nature reserve….
Yup! Turned the TV off right after the dialog that went something to the effect of: “… frakking pumps 1,000s of gallons of poisonous chemicals under ground that then contaminates the drinking water….” TOTALLY laughably AND ignorant. Yeah, it’s “just” TV and it’s ALL fiction, but TV drama shows (which is what TNT is ALL about) like CSI, Bones, Law&Order, R&I, etc. portray themselves as “real-world” AND and that within the shows they are scientifically “correct” or as close as you can make a show. In MHO, I think it is a form of fraud when they deviate from the facts (or real world) for someones real world political or envoromental agenda!
IF, as a producer (or writer), for the purpose of making money, you’re going to represent/claim that this is “as real as we can make it”, then you should be intellectually honest enough to keep your personal ideology/agenda OUT of the show. I stop watching Law & Order (one of my favorites) a few years back when Wolf went off the (politically left) deep end. And I know many others have also.
Of course, it could be that they were just ignorant of the facts…. which is just a different reason for NOT watching.

Maybe someone should try and save the folks living down by the water and force them to give up their homes and move to higher ground. Then see how much sea level rise is projected. I bet it changes fast.

Green energy? ……New script:
(J.R. enters) Look Bobby, I’m not hitching our wagon to a bunch of government mules, they’ll get our wagon and they’ll never give it back.
(Bobby) But J.R., there is a lot of money in those government troughs.
(J.R.) I know, I know. But we aren’t going to own jack sh!t when the wheels fall off this wagon. We’ll just bundle up the suckers, uhm.. I mean investors… who really believe this green crap, take a percentage, cash the checks, then leave these new energy “producers” holding the bag while we make out like bandits.
(Bobby) Ah.. you’ve done it again J.R. By the way, where’s that idiot Gore’s number, didn’t we give that weasel some green extortion money last year, we might as well get some use out of it. Let’s see how many suck..uh … investors we can round-up.
(J.R.) Sounds good Bob. Come on. Let’s go down to the club and get a drink. I’m suppose to meet some sucker who wants a 50 year lease on the east pasture, for a windmill farm.
(Bobby) But Senator Inhofe says the government subsidy won’t last another 5 years.
(J.R.) Well, let’s get moving before he figures it out. I love this job!

If you can ignore the methane gas idiocy (I choose to think of the boys fighting on the lingerie market :p) and focus on all the rest, the show is quite good for the nostalgics (I am one of those). But what about the new viewers, that where never “exposed” to the original series? How can the producers offer an insight of the old cast motivations and characters? In the end, I very much doubt there will be enough audience to guarantee a 2nd season; I hope I’m wrong, ’cause I’d love to see the old hands more.

If CO2 and methane are such potent greenhouse gases why are their actual, accurately determined physical properties such as thermal conductivity (does anyone believe this was determined but doesn’t include radiative properties) and specific heat so unremarkable – OK the specific heat of methane is twice that of air but at parts per billion negligible.

Again, how can trace gasses be responsible for that backradiation shown in Kiehl & Trenberth’s budget with such unremarkable properties ?? After all, the team never popose that the bulk of the atmosphere contributes to the backradiation !

Is there any evidence that is actually a repeatable scientific experiment where the actual physics is demonstrated that CO2 can absorb enough energy at ambient temperatures to cause a heating effect on the bulk of the atmosphere or the Earth’s surface ?

I too saw Rizzoli & Isles and concur with others here that it was awful. So I went to the TNT Rizzoli & Isles website to express my displeasure. The comments overwhelmingly dissed the anti-fracking theme. We must be making progress in educating the public (I hope and pray).

I’m pretty sure I saw some scenes involving mattresses and pillows, even a little skirt hiking and body slamming. In any case, I agree. I didn’t see much to get worked up about. There were a few scenes in which Christopher pontificated annoyingly, but it was entirely in character, and he didn’t really come off very well. He’s getting used and abused every which way he turns. Even his new bride is scheming against him.

In the original series, Bobby was well-meaning, but a doormat. As revealed in the final episode, without JR, he’d have ended up a two-bit hustler. JR was an uber jerk, but he made it all go. Still, without Bobby, he’d have ended up overreaching, and falling to ruin.

That’s the way the world works, the yin and the yang, the tension between the forces of the light and the dark, which keeps everything in balance. The new series looks to be shaping up the same way. I think they made a good start.